I assume this means you've given up on the idea of creating a GUI ZCML
configuration tool, the?

No. In fact, I've been creating the tool for the purpose of convincing
myself that ZCML is right, even though I still believe it's wrong. :-)

One thing I've learned from the GUI project, however, is that its
greatest value is being able to *query* the configuration. It lets you
answer questions like "where are all the views named update.html?".
That's valuable independently of the format of ZCML.